The Personal Touch

Have you noticed how technologized customer service is becoming these days? ATMs are slowly replacing real live tellers at banks. Red Boxes dispense videos, while places like Hollywood Video have gone out of business, where you would talk to a person face-to-face, sometimes about the movie you were borrowing. You can now go to a grocery store, and purchase food or sundries using the self-checkout and never interact with a real person (unless the computerized checkout goofs up). 
One of the main impetuses behind these developments is cutting costs. You don't have to pay machines a living wage, not worry about health insurance or other benefits. One trained technician can service a whole fleet of machines.
But while large corporations save money this way, one thing that gets lost is the personal touch, the interaction between persons. Sure, those interactions can at times be unpleasant or rude, but they can also be helpful, cheering and at times even funny. But the point of this is that human beings are meant to interact with one another, person-to-person.
Picture now a church in which you walked in and came face-to-face with a computer screen. The screen features the following menu:

  1. Click here for a prayer request.
  2. Click here for a Bible verse
  3. Click here for a choir anthem
  4. Click here for a Praise tune
  5. Click here for an inspirational message
  6. Click here for a food box
  7. Click here for a gas voucher...
You get the idea. Church as a vending machine. Doesn't it lose something? What is the Christian community without community? The whole point is to be in personal relationship with one another. Paul says this in his Letter to the Philippians:
If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. 
The church does not exist to satisfy our own personal needs or agendas, in spite of our culture’s penchant for church-shopping and finding a church that suits our fancy. The purpose for coming together as a congregation of believers is to be livers of the Word. Our purpose is to be the visible presence of Jesus Christ in the world. Nothing more, nothing less. 
When people join the United Methodist Church, they pledge to uphold it with their Prayers, their Presence, their Gifts, their Service and their Witness. The gift of our Presence is a vital part of being part of the Body of Christ. By being present to one another, we can also mediate the presence of God to one another. 
One way to think of this is that we are called not just to be believers of the Word, but more importantly to be livers of the Word. 
(Believers >> be livers)
The Discipline of the United Methodist Church states this explicitly:



“The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ by proclaiming the good news of God’s grace and by exemplifying Jesus’ command to love God and neighbor, thus seeking the fulfillment of God’s reign and realm in the world.” (2004 Discipline, ¶ 121.)
The way we "exemplify Jesus' command to love God and neighbor" is person-to-person. We can't love our neighbor abstractly or theoretically. It has to be in person. God didn't love the world so much that He sent his Only Computer Screen, or even an Automatic Mercy Machine. Forgiveness doesn't come on a credit card, and our iPods and iPhones can't love us unconditionally. 
God cared enough to come in Person. Why should we do any less? Our presence - my presence and your presence - are presents, gifts that we offer to one another, and to God. 

(Images sources: ATM found at http://web.ecomplanet.com/ABS2831/servercontent/mycustomimages/ABS2831CustomImage1458529.jpg;   Gothic computer case at http://www.walyou.com/img/gothic-computer-case-mod-archbishop-dracula-1.jpg; congregation at http://www.elcsant.org.za/congregations/images/pmb_congregation.jpg;  congregation sketch at http://susancornelis.files.wordpress.com/2007/05/congregation.jpg)

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